A NATION CHALLENGED: MILITARY

A NATION CHALLENGED: MILITARY; Large U.S. Force Is Assembling As Bush Decides How to Strike

By STEVEN LEE MYERS and THOM SHANKER

Published: September 30, 2001

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29—
The United States has now amassed a military force of 28,000 sailors, airmen and troops, more than 300 warplanes and two dozen warships spread for thousands of miles across a military theater with Iraq and Afghanistan at its heart.

The diverse forces, stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, bring a potent range of military options with them to keep pressure on those two isolated nations. But while there is enough firepower to allow President Bush to order strikes at any moment he chooses, senior Pentagon officials acknowledge that the immediate options are in many ways both imperfect and risky.

The buildup continues even while Pentagon officials talk of lightning raids and precision strikes against targets in Afghanistan, because no matter how brief and limited, such operations require a vast and expensive network of bases, command posts, flight decks, refueling outposts and defensive weapons, with all the accompanying logistics.

Although President Bush and his defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, say the campaign against terror will be a new kind of war, the force assembling in the region still consists mainly of sea and air power. Conventional wars are ultimately won by taking and holding territory, as one military maxim has it, but that is not an option being considered in what the administration has constantly said is not a conventional operation.

Even in advance of military operations, these new deployments can be seen as a way to rattle America's adversaries and to reassure America's allies that the nation is committed, and will remain committed, to the new war on terrorism in the region.

The Pentagon has mobilized special operations troops -- their numbers are secret -- but so far they are playing mainly a role linked to possible air and missile strikes, the officials said.

For now, other ground forces in place or mobilizing are most likely to play mainly protective roles in places like Kuwait.

The United States dispatched B-52 and B-1 bombers to the region and has Navy F-14's and F-18's aboard nearby aircraft carriers. Air Force F-15's and F-16's routinely enforce no-flight zones over Iraq, where American and British warplanes have continued to skirmish with Iraqi air defense forces even since the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks.

The Bush administration has resisted temptation to retaliate immediately for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as it rallies broader international support for battling terrorism and gleans intelligence on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and his allies.

The question of how to battle terrorists in their remote and rocky Afghan havens has perplexed military planners in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, some of whom share a darkly comic answer when asked about the war plan.

''It's called A.O.S.,'' they say, using a barracks abbreviation for ''all options stink.'' Another senior military official said there was ''no good option that wouldn't make us look useless.''

A senior Air Force officer said late this week that the Bush administration was still negotiating for all the support for overflights and for basing aircraft it would like in the region.

Again, this limits the immediate options.

John Bolton, the under secretary of state, ended the week in talks with Central Asian countries that border Afghanistan.

A senior official said that talks this week in Pakistan had given the United States significant access to bases there, mainly for search and rescue operations and reconnaissance.

Ever since the Persian Gulf war in 1991, the United States has maintained a significant military presence in the region, largely to keep President Saddam Hussein of Iraq in check.

At any given time, those forces number more than 20,000 military personnel, nearly 200 fighter and support aircraft and at least one aircraft carrier and its accompanying warships, which include submarines and destroyers equipped with long-range cruise missiles.

That force is now expanding. Immediately after the attack, President Bush ordered the aircraft carrier Enterprise and its battle group to remain in the region after the carrier Carl Vinson arrived in the Persian Gulf, instantly doubling the naval firepower normally stationed there.

Each carrier has roughly 75 aircraft -- half of which are F-14 and F-18 attack jets -- capable of conducting around-the-clock air operations for days at a time.

Two other carriers -- the Theodore Roosevelt, headed to the Mediterranean Sea, and the Kitty Hawk, which recently steamed out of its home port in Japan -- could also join the operation, but have not yet received orders to do so, officials said.

President Bush also ordered the Air Force to deploy nearly 50 combat aircraft, including B-52 and B-1 long-range bombers now on Diego Garcia, the British island in the Indian Ocean, according to officials.

The B-52's, Vietnam-era bombers in most cases older than the pilots flying them, are equipped with 20 cruise missiles able to travel as far as 1,500 miles to their targets. The B-1's carry up to 24 satellite-guided 2,000-pound bombs.

The Air Force has also dispatched an armada of aerial refuelers, reconnaissance aircraft and other support aircraft to bases in Turkey, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia, bringing the total of American aircraft in the region to more than 300, the officials said.

All told, roughly 6,000 additional American troops have poured into the region since the attacks. Those new troops include additional security forces as well as Army Special Forces units.

Before Sept. 11, the Army had about 3,000 troops there, mostly in Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The Army also maintains a stockpile of equipment in Kuwait, along with two Patriot air defense batteries. Another Patriot battery is in Saudi Arabia.

A brigade's worth of equipment has been positioned in Qatar and another brigade's worth is afloat in the region.

Britain also has a significant force in the region, including more than 20,000 troops, an aircraft carrier, several other warships and dozens of aircraft, all taking part in a previously scheduled training exercise with Omani forces.

The force, Britain's largest deployment since the Falklands war in 1982, could switch from its training to take part in operations.

As Mr. Bush's national security advisers weigh their options, the emphasis has so far been on other efforts to squeeze terrorist operations, especially through the work of law enforcement officials and those whose target is Mr. bin Laden's financial network.

''You may not want to pull the trigger until you see how some of these other actions are paying off,'' a senior Defense Department official said.